BUS565-M2D1:The Happiest Place on Earth and Facebook

Content analysis, which involves “the systematic, objective, quantitative analysis of message characteristics,” may involve coders studying a selected sample of media coverage and systematically noting important traits (Content Analysis, n.d.). The analysis begins with identifying what the coders should look for, vice simply “discovering” the messages. Then, what is seen can be counted and analyzed (“An intro to content analysis,” n.d.). Someone who is analyzing the Happiest Place on Earth’s Facebook page, Walt Disney World, should expect to see a lot of happiness, magic, and fun, customer engagement, and very little that is negative.

To analyze whether a Facebook page is living up to company expectations, a good place to start is to see if they are following marketing objectives. The Walt Disney Company’s marketing plan requires the company to project a brand personality that is happy, lighthearted, and magical, and that can transport its followers to a state of happiness and magic (Carawan, 2013). The company prides itself on this image, and it’s vital that it comes through on its social media campaign. To see if this image is shining through, the following items were analyzed:

The tone of the post or comment is given anywhere from -15 to +15 points. The most positive post is given +15, most negative is -15.

The words “magic,” “happy,” or “fun” in any form were given 0-20 points, as they promote the brand personality. Twenty points were given if the actual words were used, 10 points were given if the words were implied by the message, 0 points if the words were absent.

Any phrasing asking the consumer to engage within the post, such as post pictures or tell a story about a Disney memory were given 0-20 points. Zero points for no engagement, 10 points for asking customers to share an experience, 20 points for asking customers to share a picture. The same points were given to comments that engaged as the post instructed.

If the post or comment contains a picture or video, 15 points are given. Pictures are excellent for grabbing the reader’s attention, and a commenter that posts a picture shows a high degree of trust and engagement (Khare, 2014).

10 points are given to posts that encourage the customer to take action, such as downloading an app, or visiting a Walt Disney website outside of Facebook. Likewise, 10 points were given to a commenter that indicates that they downloaded the app or visited the outside site.

The length of the post was also analyzed. Studies have shown that the ideal Facebook post will have between 100 and 119 characters (Kuenn, 2014). A range of 0-20 points were given for post length, with 20 points given for a post of the ideal length, and 0 points for a post that differed in length by 40 characters in either direction.

Criteria

Post #

1

2

3

4

5

6

Total

P1

15

10

0

15

0

18

58

C1

15

20

0

0

0

0

35

P2

15

0

0

15

10

15

55

C2

15

10

0

0

10

0

35

P3

15

0

0

15

10

20

60

C3

15

0

0

0

0

0

15

P4

15

0

0

15

10

20

60

C4

15

0

0

0

10

0

25

P5

15

10

0

15

10

20

70

C5

15

20

0

0

10

20

65

P6

15

10

0

15

10

6

56

C6

15

0

0

0

10

0

25

P7

15

0

0

15

0

0

30

C7

15

0

0

0

0

0

15

P8

15

0

0

15

10

20

60

C8

15

10

10

15

10

10

70

P9

15

20

0

15

0

0

50

C9

15

20

0

15

0

10

60

P10

15

20

0

15

10

20

80

C10

15

20

0

15

0

10

60

The posts that were analyzed ranged in score from 30 points at the low end to 80 points at the high end. The most common deficiency included a lack of customer engagement. None of the posts that were analyzed asked the customer to engage with the company by telling stories or sharing pictures. Wall posts are an excellent opportunity for a company to engage with their customers and show they are responsive (McCorkindale, 2010). The Walt Disney Company is missing valuable opportunities to engage with their customers and spread their positive message. They rarely, if ever, respond to customers’ comments and posts, showing an unfortunate lack of caring from a company that prides itself on a happy experience. The posts that were analyzed were picked using a random number generator, so there were posts on the Facebook page that were not analyzed that did encourage consumer engagement, though.

The company’s followers don’t seem to be bothered much by the lack of encouragement to engage. The post with the lowest score was simply a video of the Tea Cups with the title “Tea Time!”:

This post had very little of what was looked for in the analysis, but it still promoted the brand’s fun personality. The message had fewer than the ideal number of characters, did not contain any key words, and did little to encourage the engagement of the consumer, but through the magic of Walt Disney, they still managed to represent their brand personality and they had quite a lot of engagement. Even the comment analyzed on the post was positive, despite starting with three emphatic “no’s.”

The post with the highest score contained the key words that were considered to promote the marketing objectives, encouraged the reader to take action, included a very uplifting video, and contained the ideal number of characters. This post had drastically more in the way of engagement than the “tea time” post. This seems to support the accuracy of the weighting that was used in the coding of Walt Disney World’s Facebook posts.

The comments that were analyzed seem to have little to do with the posts they were associated with, but they all upheld a positive tone. The comment with the highest score seemed to have very little to do with the post it was associated with. The post was encouraging a new app, whereas the comment was about a recent trip to Disney. The comment showed very high engagement from the customer, but was not even acknowledged by Disney’s customer support.

A monstrous company like Walt Disney World may not see the merit of engaging with customers, thanking them for their positive comments, or helping them on social media when they have a question, because they already have a very strong base of lifelong, repeat customers. For a smaller business, though, this engagement is vital. Positive engagement from the company builds a good reputation, increases trust, and can attract new customers through word-of-mouth (“How to engage with customers,” n.d.). Despite their lack of customer engagement, Disney is doing an excellent job at encouraging its brand personality and promoting a positive message.